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Scientists uncover a genetic ‘shield’ that lowers the risk of colorectal cancer
A team of scientists from the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University and institutions across the U.S. have published a new paper on the role of TGFBR1*6A, a naturally occurring genetic mutation in the TGFBR1 gene found in approximately 14% of the general population.
The study, “TGFBR1*6A and risk for colorectal cancer,” published June 9, 2026, in Cancer Communications, focuses on TGFBR1*6A and how it influences a person’s risk of developing colorectal cancer. Dr. Boris Pasche, president and CEO of the Karmanos Cancer Institute and chair of the Wayne State University Department of Oncology, was the first to discover TGFBR1*6A as a cancer risk allele.
“This mutation has often been overlooked by genome-wide association study chips, which cannot detect TGFBR1*6A, and is commonly missed by next-generation sequencing platforms due to the complexity of the region,” said Dr. Allan Johansen, a postdoctoral fellow and first author of the paper.
Faster aging, chronic disease linked to WTC responders with PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains a common condition affecting World Trade Center (WTC) responders 25 years after the attack on the Twin Towers. While the condition is considered mainly psychological, a new study sheds light on changes in the biological processes of WTC patients with PTSD that may explain why PTSD is associated with a variety of chronic diseases that ultimately contribute to aging.
Completed by a team of researchers affiliated with the Stony Brook World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program, which monitors the health of and provides patient care to some 10,000 WTC responders, and scientists at Duke University, the study is published in Nature Communications.
The work represents more than a decade of research led by Benjamin J. Luft, MD, senior author, the Edmund D. Pellegrino Professor of Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) at Stony Brook University and director of the WTC Health and Wellness Program; and Pei-Fen Kuan, Ph.D., first author and professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University.
Better heart ‘digital twins’ could help target treatment for atrial fibrillation
A cross-university paper led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London, published in the Journal of Physiology, shows how better “digital twins” could help doctors treat people with atrial fibrillation.
One of the leading causes of stroke, atrial fibrillation (AF) is an erratic, quivering heartbeat that affects more than 1.5 million people in the U.K. The most common treatment is a procedure called ablation, in which doctors use heat or cold energy to destroy the small patches of heart tissue that trigger the chaotic rhythm. It works, but not for everyone and not always the first time.
Repeat ablation is common in persistent AF partly because the condition involves complex, distributed electrical changes that are hard to map in a single procedure.
New technology helps reveal how the heart generates cells with regenerative potential
Two research teams at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) have developed a pioneering technique in Spain to characterize the proteome of individual cardiomyocytes—the cells responsible for heart contraction.
The study, published in Genome Biology, shows that the transcription factor Myc, used in regenerative strategies, alters protein expression in each cell differently, generating a subpopulation of cardiomyocytes with regenerative potential.
According to study leaders Miguel Torres and Jesús Vázquez, the findings provide key insights into the mechanism of action of Myc at the level of individual cardiomyocytes and offer new opportunities for the development of future regenerative therapies.
Quantum-inspired AI could tailor patients’ cancer treatment to their entire molecular background
For a child diagnosed with neuroblastoma—the most common infant cancer, occurring when early nerve cells grow out of control—the path to treatment isn’t simple. Some types of neuroblastoma resolve on their own, while others require aggressive intervention. Researchers have tried matching treatments to patients based on one-gene mutations with limited success. This is because patients’ outcomes depend on their entire molecular background, containing millions or even billions of features, such as DNA and RNA from tissues and blood.
“It’s much more than just one gene—everything that’s happening in the cells of the patient matters,” said Orly Alter, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Utah’s Scientific Computing & Imaging Institute.
Current artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) approaches require massive amounts of training data and, specifically, vastly more patient samples than genetic features.
Intracellular mechanisms promote tumor survival during hypoxia
Northwestern Medicine scientists have, for the first time, described the underlying mechanisms that regulate how cells rapidly change gene expression in response to hypoxia, a key feature of many treatment-resistant tumors, according to a recent study published in Science Advances.
Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D., the chair and Robert Francis Furchgott Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, was the senior author of the study.
FTC gives Musk the OK to acquire SpaceX alumni startup Mesh
Mesh Optical came out of stealth in February when it announced that it raised a $50 million Series A led by Thrive Capital.
Before founding Mesh Optical, the startup’s co-founders, Travis Brashears, Cameron Ramos, and Serena Grown-Haeberli, developed the optical communication links that keep thousands of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites interconnected.
The Mesh co-founders saw an opportunity to develop optical transceivers for terrestrial data centers, as light-based hardware is faster and more energy-efficient than traditional electrical-based systems.